Rotten to the Corps
by IFFTinky
Summary: Warhammer 40k story about a member of an Imperial Guard specialist squad who finds himself alone and fighting for his life when he discovers the rest of his team have turned heretical. UPDATE I do not have much time to work on this, updates will be rare
1. Chapter 1

Light streamed across the barren surface, slowly at first…like a soft stream of deep red, adding a tint to huge glass domes that housed the populous. The signs of waking inhabitants gave the appearance of lights across the planet, making the whole thing look like a giant red Christmas tree. But there was no sweet candy hanging from the branches and the angel on top was the Emperor of Mankind, the saviour of the race and the faith at the heart of every citizen of the Imperium. He was everywhere…his eyes opened as the two biospheres came to life; one for living in, the other for making weapons for the war effort. As he took a breath, advanced machines inhaled the deadly atmosphere of this barren world, unprocessed gasses blown back out producing a low humming like that of the Astronomicon - the song of a million psykers, showing the safe routes through the warp of space travel. Five rows of carriages stretched out across the stark landscape, like a hand carrying the workers to the factories. The whole world shook with the vibrations of machines as the potential destructiveness crept over the world.

But as the morning came the light flowed hard and fast across the wastelands, filling even the vast canyon of Valles Marineris …now seeping with ruby light. Within this valley, Antov woke as the redness reached him through the tightly shut storage container…muttering a prayer to the Throne for keeping him alive another night he pressed upwards against the multitude of frosty blankets he had packed himself in the trunk with. The nights here are cold, below zero cold…the days aren't exactly peachy, but bearable. He was humbly thankful that true faith had led him to an abandoned building which looked like it dated back to the initial teams who came to build what was now the habitats for munitions factories and their workers.

It had been 2 days since he was left to die on this world, unbelievably the rest of his covert strike team had defected…they asked him to join, the enemy paid well.

"Emperor's Throne Nickoladze, Humanity is our race…they are the enemy, I beg you to cast out the doubt from your heart and find true faith in the Emperor before you fall beyond redemption…" 

"_Our race has sent hundreds like you and I to our deaths, to die for the better of that corpse-emperor…not to better ourselves! Let go of your beloved wish of what we are building, the Imperium is a dying concept…"_

"_You are no longer a son of our His Grace, you are tainted…maybe not visually, but I can feel the warp filling your mind with hate and lies. But, I will make your death swift…in respect for your service thus far."_

A second squad member, now just another faceless heretic as far as humanity was concerned, moved behind him, placing a small las-pistol to the side of his head.Antov had kicked back hard…snapping the knee of the man, falling with him; Antov rolled along the floor to bring the injured man on top. He heard the light cracking of repeated las and bolt-pistol shots, and the warm trickling of blood…not his. Various heretical curses were thrown toward Antov but faith in the God-Emperor would save him; he lay there…playing dead for a few moments and taking the uncertain and cautioned approach to gather his wits. Fumbling for the handcuffs, he attached one to the deceased.

"_Okay, okay…I give up."_

Nikoladze halted the approaching men, he knew Antov…he knew he'd be planning, thinking. But what could one man do against five…Chaos is stronger! Staring round the room, Nikoladze took in the surroundings…a featureless storage room…full of cleaning equipment. He motioned silently for one of the accomplices to move a floor brush that was leaning against a wall; anything was dangerous in those hands.

He finally stood forward of his men, confident he was safe.

"_Hah, how quickly your vaunted faith flutters from the window when faced with certain doom…now get up. I was going to bring you back as a slave, the numerous deaths in Hab4 would satiate the Blood-God enough to allow one life to fall calmly but now I must make you suffer."_

Antov was also confident, he had a plan…it needed a whole lot of luck…but it was a plan. He needed to escape to get out and warn others of this betrayal, this infestation.

"_I…I cannot. I have been shot in the arm, I cannot raise the body"_

Encouraged by confidence, and Nikoladze moved to complete his coup de grace…ending the life of Antov meant a clean ending and no one would know the better - well not for another few days anyway, Chaos may be in constant turmoil but there are better ways of doing things. Swaggering over towards his adversary he kept every muscle tight, ready to spring backward or even forward if need be. The sight of blood flowing from the mass on the floor only reinforced his belief he had won, tipping his fellow brethren off of Antov with a foot. Seeing the bloodstained clothes, he leaned down to jeer before he started to play…

"_I always knew you were a weak man Antov!"_

To Antov, now sitting at a desk, the rest of his escape was mostly a blur…an adrenaline filled passing of what could only have numbered up to a matter of seconds. Yet it felt like longer when he pressed himself to reply to actions in his mind. To replay hauling Nikoladze in close, locking the handcuff around his wrist. Slow-motion going forwards as the faithful brought his knee up and into the heretical gut of his executor flipping him, winded, flattening him on his back.

Between coughs Nickoladze managed to bark an order…_"Kill him…KILL HIM"_… Antov pushed himself from the floor and swan dived backwards though a waste chute that he had noticed, labelled and filed before the traitors had shown their true colours, pistol shots barking after him. A soldier always knows his surroundings… a soldier, serving Him unto death. A true soldier's life.

_The stark silence of deep thought was fractured by a detonation of quite some magnitude, dust dribbled down from the steel beams of the enclosure…red dust. Antov wiped his hand through his hair; _Nickoladze wastes no time I see_. His hair felt dry and the excessive amount of dust made it feel almost baked solid. _I hate this Emperor-forsaken planet_. He inspected his hands; they almost glowed with the coloration that saturated every living and non-living thing. It was like an infection, and there was no cure. Antov looked at his blood-coloured hands, _was this a sign? Blood-covered hands…was this the Emperors will? To kill in his name? Or was he suggesting an unlikely alliance. Antov _was going to give thanks for a fourth time this day but he felt that he shouldn't over do it…anyway there was this feral sensation in his gut, he would be the one needing blessings to survive the day._


	2. Chapter 2

It occurred to Nickoladze, as he paced waiting for the triggerman (the one who would set the explosion off) to meet him at the agreed place, just how much Antov Petrosky's words had stung. He was right of course; the acts of today would make him an enemy of his own state…he had turned his back on his family, friends and even his race.

I Nickoladze Lyovov…am no a servant of His Majesty, I am on my own…no not on my own, I have my traitor brothers. I can be so much more; I am becoming so much more. In just one week I have accomplished things I only used to dream of. Antov was right as well, I can also feel the power of the warp overtaking me, it is a good pain! A strong pain, but it makes me strong also! To succeed you must surrender something, surely my humanity is worthless anyway…all my weaknesses, my reservations, everything that made me…human.

"Long life the rule of the Imperium".

That was it! The phrase, it startled Nickoladze from his dreaming…he scrambled to think of the correct reply…

"Rule is only as strong as its people's belief in its strength, weaken that and the rule weakens with them."

Nickoladze became tense, he had been edgy ever since Antov's melodramatic exit a few days previous but with no word from Miloslev or Volya he could only keep to the plan to appease his newfound God. Blood for the Blood-God, Skulls for the Skull-throne!

"But, my friend, what would we raise in its place?"

"I do not deal in building, merely destroying…"

Destroying life, destroying others lives…Antov recognised this to, he knew what we were becoming…yet he would rather have died than turn his back on those who play him with puppet strings. His faith was strong, but I was blinding also.

"I see we work in the same line of business…"

The faithful-turned-faithless, realised this was it…his next phrase was to find out how the bombing had gone. He knew it had gone off, but he was a through man, how well it had gone was just as important. The reply to this would make Nickoladze feel…better, to some degree. To know it was over, the first stains of blood to cover his hands, the first of many, he could feel warmth running through him…it was then a matter tying up loose ends and leaving before suspicions arose – it was not yet time to reveal the extent of the corruption on this world.

"Do tell me. How goes the business?"

Apprehension was filling Nickoladze from his boots upwards, he could feel it rising…trading place with the sweat running down his back.

"Business is booming!"

The two, seemingly, friends shared a laugh that only they could understand. But, the fight had now hit extra time, he knew the longer he stayed the more dangerous it would become…still they do say you should mix business with pleasure. With a thirst for death in his mouth he placed his arm around his partner's shoulder sharing the joke and with a sudden tensing of the forearm he crushed his throat and left him to choke to death. Loose ends…they're everywhere.

"_Business is booming…that's a good one…" _he mused as he left for his transport.

The explosion ripped out from beneath a parked transporter and flared out across the area in the blink of an eye, a vicious growing fireball that immolated soldiers and civilians alike, blasting everything aside. Flames of chaos rippled along the floor like blood from a fresh corpse…scorching the ground and leaving a dark reminder of the unholy in its wake. The transporter itself, what was left of it, was flung through a nearby shop-front scattering sharp edged plas-glass into mobs of stunned customers and passer-by's shredding flesh and snuffing lives. The habs upper levels collapsed when struts vanished as metal walls were melted and vaporised. The whole facility shook as the explosion rolled outwards and eventually dissipated, leaving a trail of flame and smoke…and dead, the fires quickly took hold, and spread. The survivors started to pick themselves up off the floor, unable to believe their eyes. The lights cut out as the main power cables were shorted by the multitude of burst water pipes.

Trooper Cadiz was first on his feet, his Arbites training giving him the psychological wherewithal to act first and deal with his fear and confusion later. Dotted around the various hab-levels were communication points where troopers could inform command central of shift changes, report disturbances and in this case, call for backup.


	3. Chapter 3

The moon was hidden behind cloud that night and the rain fell, as it always did on Aldebran, or 'Kahynes Slumber' as these talking apes had named it after it was discovered by a ship captained by Elucius Kahynes who died and was laid to rest here, in continual light sheets of smoggy wetness. The kind of rain that falls so lightly it can't be felt, and falls so often it isn't heard. The drops splattered into shallow gouges that had speckled the brick roofing which covered the home of Aldebran's Titan regiment, gouges created by years and years of industrial rains, eating away at the brickwork just like the humans that eat away at the planets they infest.

The smell was something to be believed! The shadow had crouched low on the wall, stock still as the gargoyles of stone that littered the rooftops as far as the eye could see, realised why his brethren had named them Black-water Worlds. Not for the first time since receiving the mission details, the shadow felt elated that so many of these...these Mon'keighs would die before the night was through.

Trooper Cadaz was also feeling in a lamentful mood that night, sighing, he lit a lho-stick - possibly the only benefit of exterior patrol duty! He had stopped by one of the stone figures on the roof edge, staring out over the world he had been bought up on. His trips to the Librarium had told him that once upon a time it wasn't this industrial magnificence that it is today, he sneered at the continual acidic rain, the lack of wildlife, the smell of heavily confined humans and of course the smog laying over the city like a pestilential malignancy in the air...industrial magnificence! To think that mankind had taken Kahynes Slumber from the barren landscape it had been for such a long time and terraformed it into a landscape of wonder, rolling green hills, plants, animals...such was the glory of mankind's abilities when put to good. But, when put to bad, humankind was a devastating power...within only a few thousand years the Adeptus Mechanicous had strip-mined most of the planet and had exterminated all wildlife except for a few species that had fled to the fringes of the giant cities. Course, if you believed the rumours that captured Eldar saboteurs had conceded then even before humans had discovered Kahynes Slumber it had been a lush fertile place although this is widely discredited seeing that as far as records on Terra go back Kahynes Slumber was always a red and dead planet.

He flicked the dead lho-stick over the edge, spat after it for good measure and had continued to trudge along the roof edge, past the stone statues. He too had shared the rain with the roof shadow that fateful night...although he was never aware of the deadly companion. Cadaz stopped near a corner on that sepulchral rooftop halted by a sudden caustic gale that tugged at his foul-weather overcoat biting into his bare neck. Grumbling many obscenities he lit another lho-stick and inhaled, blue smoke billowed from his nostrils, barely visible in the background of smog. He went to take another drag but the lho-stick fell to the floor, still clutched between his dismembered fingers, he turned towards the now visible shadow and tried to shout but the return-swing of the blade was upon him.

It was a short drop, a mere metre or two from the skylight to the darkened corridor, the figure dropped silently to the floor...pistol held out in front...he scanned both lengths of his entrance point. If the rest of the guard were as untrained as the fool on the roof, then this should be an easy mission. Without even trying the infiltrator had slipped past 14 guards, 3 check-points and was now only 4 rooms away from the objective - only then would he know the full specifications of the mission, the objective until now was only to infiltrate the building and reach the fuel store for the Titan legions of Aldebran. Round his neck, covered by a splint of wraith-bone was the remainder of his orders, carefully hidden from prying eyes...only one who has taken the path of enlightenment can unlock its secrets, one who can speak to the wraithbone in a language understood by none and all at once.

Enlightenment would have to wait however, the doorway that had been carefully closed now stood wide open. The dim strip lights flickered to life illuminating a kneeling figure, gaudy colours on a body suit were just visible underneath a dark-grey foul-weather jacket the name tag said "Cadaz, R". Surrounding the lone figure was at least a dozen Imperial Troopers, all looking very incensed for being disturbed near the end of the night-shift...still when better to slip past watching eyes then when the eyes are only half-open.

"You are trespassing on Imperial Property. As acting commander of this base I request that you drop any arms and surrender." As if to reinforce the request the whine of Las-rifles powering up and clacking of bolter pistols being loaded filled the air, but still the figure just...sat. A voice, smooth as oil and framed with an almost melodic note, sailed effortlessly across the room. "Put away YOUR weapons and YOU surrender."

Spluttering obscenities, the Troopers crowded forward, "Hold your places!" bellowed the sergeant. "You," he addressed the individual who was still serenely kneeling "I have asked you to surrender. Now I shall insist that you surrender...don't think you can hide from us, don't think that grey coat hides your true colours. I know what you are you foul xeno..." At this the figure moved like lightening, a perfect mix of speed and composure. Within a heartbeat he had drawn his pistol and had it lying against the cheek of the sergeant.

"You dare to call me foul?! Have you stepped outside this building? Have you seen the filth and muck that hugs this planet like a constricting serpent? We are older than anything you can imagine, we remember the birth of this planet...it was a beautiful world. Plants and animals ran freely, water, pure as the blue sky ran from springs and filled the oceans. Tell me, Mon'keigh, where is it all now? All that I could see through that choking smog was row upon row of blackened buildings back-dropped by that everlasting redness. Terrible machines tearing out what is left from the very heart of this place...and what for? To build more machines of war so that more planets can be disease-ridden by you and your misguided empire. You sicken me, I feel tainted from your mere presence."

The amount of brain matter contained in a race which showed very little mental aptitude was always a paradox to Voraleth, still the Trooper's coat protected him from the worst when the air was filled with blood and gore as he fired, point-blank, into the sergeants face.

Releasing his gun, he dropped into a low crouch...on the way down he flung a handful of shurikens, the same used as ammo for his pistol, towards the huddled group lacerating the faces and bodies of two troopers. Spinning his right foot out in a wide circle, four more troopers were incapacitated as a neural toxin applied to spurs on his boots entered through scratches in their ankles. With half the opposing force dead or dying, Voraleth retrieved his Shuriken Pistol, using the still-twitching body of the sergeant as a springboard Voraleth leapt forward, tumbling through the milling troopers, the overcoat borrowed from Cadaz making it hard to tell enemy from friend in the melee. The guardsmen's nerves were in pieces already, the thought that any of the other people in these close quarters could be the xeno helped the heighten their fear and lower (if that was possible) their intelligence.

"I've got him!" One of the troopers screamed, wrestling on the floor with the great grey cloak previously owned by poor Cadiz. With the help of the remaining able-bodied men they pinned down the fluttering cloak, the one Eldar struggling against the grip of five. A pistol butt was crushed into Voraleth's face though he could not tell where it came from, indeed with his nose broken he could not see very much at all for a few seconds.

"We'll make you suffer now you Emperor-damned xeno, bringing your foulness to our planet! You'll tell us what you were doing here...yes you will...the Inquisition will have whatever's left of you. I doubt they'll mind if we get some payback for Sarge! Maybe we'll start with this lovely face of yours...eye for an eye and all that..."

The words halted in mid-flow as there was a teeth-jarring explosion, it wasn't nearby but from the way the lights started flickering...there had definitely been a colossal detonation somewhere. All thoughts of the alien were left for a short few moments as secondary explosions could be heard, the lights overhead began to flicker and finally ceased to illuminate. From the darkness there came a soft, lilting laughter.

"I still got him!" Called the trooper...they all turned their heads down to check but it was not until the emergency lighting restored vision that they realised..."I don't got him..." The saw the plasma grenade that had been left by Voraleth.


End file.
